Does An AC Router Improve N Device Performance?

[htismaqe]

The internal adapter in my iMac blows away anything else I have in terms of internal antennas and that includes 3 Acers, an HP, and a Compaq.

 

[Steve40th]

The internal adapter in my iMac blows away anything else I have in terms of internal antennas and that includes 3 Acers, an HP, and a Compaq.

What is so great about it? Testing?

 

[htismaqe]

It performs better, primarily because it isn't a cheap, 1 or 2-stream chipset, it's a full 3-stream N450 with antennas that are properly placed inside the case. It has better range and better performance at range than any of the other built-in radios we have...

 

[sfx2000]

It performs better, primarily because it isn't a cheap, 1 or 2-stream chipset, it's a full 3-stream N450 with antennas that are properly placed inside the case. It has better range and better performance at range than any of the other built-in radios we have...

Exactly - Apple does the hard work up-front, and the more recent iMacs are a great example of how to do the radios "right" from an antenna perspective.

I've got a MacBook Pro 2012 (non-Retina) and the N900 class adapter is very good - my travel laptop, which is a MacBook Air 2014 11 inch, it's damn good for a 2-stream adapter...

 

[tarmdjur]

You used a firmware for RT-N66U based on the newer SDK 6 wireless driver. The older ones with SDK 5 have alot (!) better wifi performance. I'd even say wifi is half-broken with SDK 6.
I use Shibby's (Tomato) latest firmware with SDK 5.

Edit: I just tried the latest version by Shibby with SDK 6 and noticed better performance than with SDK 5. That's really strange, since the earlier SDK 6 were more or less considered broken wifi wise and no updates to the wireless driver have been made as far as i know.

 

[sfx2000]

I'd even say wifi is half-broken with SDK 6

I would suggest that most 3rd party software... well, for most folks, don't go there...

Some OEM's have better QA than others, and those others depend on you... what I can say is that 3rd party firmware does not have the QA/Dev resources that many OEM's do - so going down that path, just remember, you're eating someone else's dogfood..

What's more important?

Stability and a vendor you can go back to if things don't work? And a support team that is there, perhaps better or worse, to support you?

 

[herdofem]

Azazel, Just purchased TPLink C8 (for n devices for now). I was able to ditch my cluster of older routers (Netgear WNDR3400 and Asus N66) attached to Moca and my Actiontect fios router. I'v turned off WIFI on the Actiontec router. I'm using the C8 as an access point in the middle of our 2000 square foot house (which is split by a concrete wall) attached to a MOca adapter.
I'm interested where you purchased your 5 DBI (Omni directional right?) dual band antennas for the C8. Amazon has 3, 6 dbi antennas from Supper Power Supply made for the RT-AC66U, TL-WDR4300 and others, for 10 bucks. The 5 ghz signal barely (70 db) makes it to one corner of the house where the 2.4 ghz at that point was around 60 db. I'm thinking these will make a difference for the 5 ghz.